Dave Chappelle Targets Trans and Disabled People in New Netflix Special

• Dave Chappelle has his first new comedy specific out on Netflix in two years, “The Dreamer.”
• He covers an array of issues nonetheless wouldn’t let up on trans jokes which have precipitated uproar.
• Netflix has put out totally different “anti-woke” comedy specials nowadays, along with Ricky Gervais and Matt Rife.

Dave Chappelle has one different stand-up specific out on Netflix, and he hasn’t backed down from “punching down” jokes that precipitated blowback for him — and Netflix — in current occasions.

In “The Dreamer,” which dropped December 31, he takes pictures on the trans and gay communities along with disabled people. “Tonight, I’m doing all handicapped jokes,” he says. “They don’t appear to be as organized as a result of the gays, and I like punching down.”

Chappelle wouldn’t waste time, concentrating on trans people in the first 12 minutes of the hourlong specific, his seventh distinctive for Netflix, no matter saying he wasn’t “doing trans jokes no additional.”

He moreover touches on Will Smith’s slapping Chris Rock onstage in 2022 and the time he was tackled himself on the Hollywood Bowl that exact same 12 months.

“The Dreamer” builds on Chappelle’s controversial 2021 specific “The Nearer” and 2019’s “Sticks and Stones” when Chappelle joked about trans people, Michael Jackson’s accusers, and #MeToo, amongst totally different issues.

Netflix staff walked out in 2021 after Chappelle’s “The Nearer,” nonetheless the blowback didn’t seem to have loads impression.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos initially defended Chappelle’s specials, citing creative freedom, nonetheless later acknowledged he “screwed up” in not acknowledging the ache they precipitated some staff.

The question of whether or not or not comedians should “punch down” — that’s, make jokes about a lot much less privileged or marginalized groups — has change into a scorching matter inside the cultural discourse. Netflix has found a lane with totally different “anti-woke” comedy specials nowadays, along with these of Ricky Gervais and Matt Rife.

And whereas media safety criticized “The Dreamer” as lazy, the viewers seems to be consuming it up. Two days in, “The Dreamer” has an 85% viewers score on Rotten Tomatoes, inside the neighborhood of his totally different present specials.

Gervais and Rife haven’t fared as correctly, scoring 61% and 18% with audiences, respectively.